Created a new colour scheme for the site. Hope the new skin looks more aesthetically pleasing.

Added Elvish (ie Tengwar in the Quenya mode) and Klingon script renditions of the Avalokiteshvara mantra.

Elvish, or Tengwar as it is more properly called, is of course the script that J. R. R. Tolkien invented to write the Elvish languages in the Lord of the Rings. Tengwar can be written in two basic modes: Quenya, or High Elvish; and Sindarin, or Low Elvish. These terms are explained in the Silmarillion. I thought that Quenya would be the more appropriate mode for mantras. There is a thriving community of Elvish speakers and writers. Tengwar is a good script for calligraphy so if you would like to see your favourite mantra in the Tengwar script, email Jayarava.

Klingon is another 'artificial' script - it was invented by Dr Marc Okrand for the Star Trek Movies. Apparently there are a lot of enthusiastic speakers of Klingon, more even than Esperanto (although I forget where I read this). Anyway who's to say that Klingons and their sympathisers could not benefit from the mantra of Compassion - it could be argued that they need more than averagely. I hope I don't get crucified for saying it, but I perceive a passing resemblance between pre-Buddhist Tibetans and the Klingons. Klingon doesn't make for good calligraphy because to match the standard fonts one is forever swivelling the pen around and changing the angle. Tedious!

Generosity is a fundamental Buddhist practice, and has proven benefits for the giver and receiver. Gratitude is also a very powerful transformative practice that does lead to greater happiness.

With this in mind, I've added a Paypal donate button to several pages of the website - credit-card transactions accepted. While I do this stuff because I love doing it, and despite the site being hosted for free (by a generous benefactor), the fact is that it costs money for calligraphy materials, and I have to work a day job to earn a living. I would like to transfer my reliance away from manual labour, and onto donations from patrons who appreciate my work on the internet on this and other projects for the FWBO.

If you feel you have benefitted from the existence of this site, then please consider expressing your gratitude in the form of a donation - drop a few pounds into my begging bowl. Other expressions of gratitude and generosity gladly accepted for your benefit and mine, of course, and any feedback and requests also welcome.

Thanks
Dharmacari Jayarava

Thanks to Hartmut v.Wieckowski who sent me an email with some photos of old Chinese Siddham inscriptions which he was puzzled by. I was able to decypher most of it - various Shingon mantras mainly. For the really obscure bits, I suggested that he send an email to the Omniglot Puzzles Page, which invites this kind of stuff and gets readers to provide answers.

Visible Mantra is now listed on the Omniglot Siddham page. Omniglot is a very cool website, and this should produce a lot of traffic!

Updated the mantra on Green Tara with a much nicer example - some of my early efforts I eschewed using rules lines, and this lead to characters being higgledy-piggledy and this wasn't a good thing. I also mucked about with the roman transliteration, although I've no plans to do roman calligraphy of mantras. I decided that changing the url of the page from just green.html to green-tara.html would be better for Google ratings so changed it. Hopefully everything will still link up. The old page is still there. The page is now also valid HTML 4.01 Transitional. There's something so satisfying about validation - I recommend it.

Other minor tweaks all over the place

Added Ranjana (aka Lantsa) script version of the Avalokiteshvara mantra.

Added Tibetan script for Avalokiteshvara mantra and Green Tārā.

Uploaded improve Vairocana mantra and added the Shingon a vi ra hūṃ kha mantra.

Lots of tweaks, eg added Doc types for lots of pages and validated HTML - Amazon associate links problematic.

About.com has listed Visible Mantra and comments that it is a "fascinating resource". Thanks.

Added Tibetan equivalents of the Bīja - seed syllables, and some more info (and Tibetan equivalents) for a and oṃ

I've just added some detailled instructions on writing the seed syllables 'a' and hūṃ in the Siddhāṃ script - as far as I know the only instructions available on the internet.

Visible Mantra

I'm going to use this blog to keep up to date with news and new additions related to this site.